In Brazil, May 18 is the National Day for Combating Sexual Abuse of Children and Adolescents. Our communities in Belo Horizonte and Campinas carried out activities to raise awareness of this issue.
In Belo Horizonte, the group of the National Conference of Religious of Minas Gerais, called “A Cry for Life Network”, organized an event at Praça Siete, in order to make people aware of this problem, which is becoming more and more frequent in our reality in Brazil and in the world.
Our community was present and we helped in the distribution of leaflets with the flower symbol of this day, on which were written, on both sides, guiding phrases on how to perceive and denounce these situations.
In almost two hours of activity, we managed to distribute around 3,000 brochures, as well as virtual copies of the ECA and other materials that talk about the fight against human trafficking. If at least 10% of people become aware of this situation, we will consider that the activity achieved its goal. Our identification with the event’s T-shirts, in addition to some posters, served to publicize this important date. We hope that this day has not gone unnoticed in the other communities and realities where we evangelize.
In Campinas we continued along the same line of reflection with the children and adolescents of the Vedruna Center. We had a week of preparation, awareness raising and dialogues; we watched videos on the subject, made drawings, made posters and produced souvenirs to hand out in the street. We also reminded and oriented on how to report cases of abuse.
On the 18th, together with other organizations, we went out in the neighborhood to inform and raise awareness in the community about the care and respect for life, yes to life with dignity and no to abuse, especially of the most vulnerable people.
Srs. Maria do Socorro Vieira and Virma Barion, ccv
